Friday, November 25, 2011

Building a Callate Gate 2

It's well known the Hohner String Melody II has a pretty high noise floor. One of the most popular solutions is to run the synth through a decent noise gate. Noise gates are very simple: when there is no sound the gate closes and the noise goes away, when you play the synth the gate opens allowing the sound through. I've found plans to build a clone of an MXR Noise Gate at tonepad.com for a design called Callate Gate 2, this second version having mods for attack/release times plus an input attenuator. Today I rounded-up all the parts, etched a PCB, and drilled holes. I'll be soldering it together tonight and, with any luck, will have it boxed tomorrow. For anyone building this I would like to note Radioshack does not carry the "Q3" N Channel RF Amp 2N5485, but they DO carry an MPF102 with similar specs and same pinout. Let's see how it does.

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